Preps / High School Sports

Brody Westmoreland playing star role for ThunderRidge baseball team

San Diego State-bound junior shortstop Brody Westmoreland, center, is having a ball this season as a .455 hitter. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

HIGHLANDS RANCH — Brody Westmoreland had not been back to All-City Field until last Saturday. It'd been nine years between visits.

Back then, he was a wide-eyed kid watching ThunderRidge win the Class 5A state baseball championship. He remembers seeing Dan Kozloski's home run clear the left-field fence, the shot that clinched the title.

Westmoreland now is the player who makes eyes go wide. He is the Grizzlies' starting shortstop and has helped put his team in the driver's seat of this year's 5A tournament as the lone remaining unbeaten team after a 12-6 victory over Grandview at All-City Field last weekend.

"I used to come out and practice with ThunderRidge baseball all the time," Westmoreland said.

ThunderRidge's Brody Westmoreland prefers playing baseball in college, so he has only one season left in football. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

Here's what he's grown up to be: Westmoreland has been a starter and ThunderRidge's three-hole hitter since he was a freshman. He also is the school's starting quarterback, has a 3.9 grade-point average and is involved with student government.

This season, he's hitting .455 this season and has seven home runs, 40 RBIs and 14 stolen bases.

And he's only a junior. It's easy to forget that.

"We've known each other for a long time," said ThunderRidge coach Joe White. "He's kind of like a son to me in that sense, since I've known him for so long, but it's just been fun to watch him grow."

Westmoreland's father, John, played minor-league baseball for the San Diego Padres, rising as high as Triple-A. He has been an assistant at ThunderRidge for eight seasons, serving as the team's hitting and catchers coach.

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He ensured Brody had a bat in his hands at a young age.

"I started playing baseball probably since the day I could walk," Brody said.

He played on high-profile club teams while he was growing up, then made ThunderRidge's varsity squad while playing with the summer program before his freshman year.

Gradually, his power has developed. Westmoreland homered twice as a freshman and five times last season. This year, his seven home runs include a 450-foot shot over the flag pole in center field against Grandview last weekend.

"He's getting stronger. It's kind of scary, actually," White said. "The ball just comes off his bat different. I mean, that home run he hit against Grandview, it was just a bomb. And when he hits in batting practice, it's kind of scary sometimes when you're throwing to him."

Westmoreland also is a standout on the football field. He picked up the sport as a fourth-grader and played quarterback, safety and linebacker in the youth ranks.

He passed for 1,702 yards and 13 touchdowns last year while rushing for 735 yards and 12 touchdowns in leading the Grizzlies to the 5A state semifinals. It was no surprise that opportunities to play in college started to present themselves. Westmoreland attended junior days at Colorado, Colorado State and Wyoming, and interest was beginning to pick up from the Ivy League — Cornell, Harvard and Yale have inquired.

But Brody picked baseball. He committed April 1 to San Diego State, whose head coach is former Padres star Tony Gwynn. The staff includes assistant Mark Martinez, a longtime friend of White's.

"I think I've always known that I've always wanted to play baseball. I've just never really told anyone," Westmoreland said. "Whenever anyone asked me, I just told them, 'I don't know. I love them both.' But I've always felt with baseball, I could live with my body a little bit longer. Taking the blows as a quarterback would kind of get nasty the higher and higher you get up."

San Diego had long been the destination in Westmoreland's mind. His entire extended family lives in California, and he was born in Fresno.

He attended a camp on the San Diego State campus as an eighth-grader and contact with the Aztecs picked up last year. Then, after a week-long tournament in Arizona during spring break this year, Westmoreland and his mother, Merritt, routed through New Mexico on the drive home to see San Diego State play the Lobos.

The Aztecs invited him to their campus, and he made that trip the following weekend. While there, he was offered a scholarship. He committed to the Aztecs before returning home.

"You can't pass up San Diego," Westmoreland said.

Westmoreland will be back at All-City Field on Friday, when ThunderRidge plays Cherry Creek in what essentially is a state semifinal game. And at least one kid will be starry eyed when he suits up. Brody's oldest sister, Ferrin, gave birth to a son Monday.

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